>> steve: it could be. first c was capitalize and all of the rest were lower case. >> colorado. site of the debate. have a great show everyone, see you back here tomorrow, "fox and friends" starts right now. >> gretchen: good morning, everyone. big day at fox and everywhere else it is post debate time. it is october 4th. i am gretchen carlson, hope you are going to have a great day. a fierce mitt romney fights back and putting president obama on defense? >> mr. president you are entitled to your own airplane and your own house but not your own facts. >> gretchen: what did he say as i drop my papers. both so you can decide. >> steve: president obama raising taxes is the only way to dig america out of the ditch. >> it is not possible to come up with enough deductions and

loopp holes that affect only high income individuals math. it is aryth metic. >> steve: really. governor romney said cu. >> brian: this might ease your fears. free flightts to leave the country if your guy goes down. "fox and friends", we are up and we are on right now. ♪ ♪ "fox and friends". >> congratulations to you mr. president on your anniversary. i am sure this is the most romantic place you can imagine, here we me. i like pbs and big bird and you, too. i will not spend money borrowing from china to pay for it. >> american people have to ask

is the reason governor rum rhumb all of the plans because they are too good. >> look, i have five boys, i am used to people saying something that is not always true and keep on repeating it and hoping i will believe it. that is not the case. a friend of mine said you pick losers. . you are ened to your own plane and house. >> two minutes is up. >> i had five seconds before you interrupted me. and then he went for another minute. >> steve: good morning folks, and it was built as a rumble in the rockis and it certainly was and all of the polls, even the pundits on the left. it is clearr romney wound up winning the first of the three presidential debates and chris christty was right although he was derided on sunday morning chat shows. he said thursday morning we'll

talk about how the race is upside down. >> gretchen: i was stunned at this debate and how important it was. i hope americans were not watching jersey shore. i hope they were watching this debate last night. at times, it got too wonky wonk and all of the numbers and facts and figures. but i feel like the american public saw the men on the stage. brian you and i discussed how important it was. get them on the stage instead of sound bites and snippets is what the campaign is all about. i hope americans were watching. >> brian: as i said before. the analogy not just with sports, but boxing. first time you saw them together and the most stark example. we'll get details on the economy and deficit and everything else in closing arguments . how good the moderator was. body language.

the president would not look at mitt romney? >> steve: no. >> brian: he kept looking down . romm rom was staring at him. >> steve: he would look at jim lehrer like he is taking too much time. >> brian: i thought it was telling and you saw a guy that did one thing and i thought the b.b.c. katy k who never said anything nice about a republican. president obama has spent millions was dollars trying to show that governor romney was not worthy of being president. governor romney showed he was worthy and he is competent and all of that money was wasted to any of the 60 million who watched. >> steve: that's the beauty of seeing them side by side unfiltered and uninterrupt no commercials. in 30 second sound bites you can try to defend or define your opponent and that's what the president has done.

last night, gretchen, when the president of the united states am mitt romney want to cut taxes for rich guys. mr. romney said mr. president, that is not the case. >> i know you and your running mate keep saying that and it is popular to say. but it is not the case. i have five boys and i am used to people saying something that is not always true and keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping i will believe it. that is not the case. i will not reduce the taxes paid by high income americans. >> gretchen: it was interesting how mitt romney was on the offensive and this is what republicans had critized him for in the past. take it to the president and get out there and be more aggressive in your answers and you say that side of mitt romney because the president would say something. and mitt romney would say no, that is not my plan. here it is. point number one and point two and three.

the president also did this. but that was great to narrow it down in simplification of points one, two, and three. >> steve: he had a plan. >> the president also did it. but it was more compelling for mitt romney to do this because he was critized for not having specifics. >> brian: gretchen, when pressured, the governor did better and forced to get down and drill down on things, he excelled what immediately to me that set the tone and 90 minutes felt the tone was correct. the president flat out about jobs and he answered education. he was asked about jobs and answered by the education. i thought he may not have it . like george bush in 2004 not used to be crossamed and he showed that. let's listen to more. >> the fact is, if you are lowering the rates the way you describe, governor, then it is

not possible to come up with enough deduction and loop holes that only affect high income individuals to avoidd either raising the deficit or burdening the middle class. it's math. it is arithmetic. >> steve: which we have heard the president say on the stump. it is interesting and so critical for people to see, i was reading one poll, 15 or 18 percent of the country waiting to see the first debate because they were sitting on the fence and they want to see the guys side by side. mitt romney's job was to look presidential. he looked presidential and looked like he had better answers than the president of the united states. >> gretchen: and so the group of voters you are tryying to get at this point, middle class americans. that was the thesis. uncommitted voters, 500 voters polled directly before and after the debate, who did they

go for. five hundred went for mitt romney. >> brian: when van jones said romney won you had a good night if you are rom romm. this sound bite is the strongest. we heard big oil accident tax breaks and busting the economy. not only did mitt romney attack this and address this, he grouped in and compared those alleged tax breaks with green energy investments with our money, listen. >> don't forget. you put 90 billion dollars worth of breaks in solar and wind to solyndra, and fis car and tesla and i friend of mine said you don't just pick winners and losers, you pick the losers, this is not the kind of policy to get america energy sescure. second topic you said you get a deduction for taking a plant over sea. i have been in business 25

years and i have no idea what you are talking about. maybe i need a new accountant but the idea for getting a break for shipping jobs over seas is not the case. we do have to bringg money from over seas back to. >> gretchen: that line happened to her. i got to hear that was to me, that is the mitt romney that a lot of people didn't think existed and wanting to see more of which is calling out the factings. >> brian: i lot of people sing nursery rhymes or talk about greenn energy. >> steve: put an eight year old in front of that thing because they don't understand what is going on. it is interesting wall street journal said that was the best debate effort by a republican nominee since ronald reagan since 1980. what happened to the united

states. michael moore got on twitter. this is what happens when you pick john kerry as a debate coach. >> gretchen: and what about bill haeh. obama made great points tonight, but unfortunately most for mitt romney. >> brian: that is compelling insight. thank goodness for twitter. i had a chance to see what the world thought. gretchen, tell us what is happening. the middle east is in flames. >> gretchen: foreign policy did not come up last night it was not part of the schedule. maybe they will talk about it next time. this is what happened last night. turkey firing rounds in syria. this is the second straight day. ♪ it comes one day after a shell inside of syria landded on a home in turkey leaving a mom, three daughters and another woman dead.

syria later offered condollences. now a deadly form of menigitus leaving four people dead in five states. that number could grow. it is believed that a steroid injected for back pain started the outbreak. it could affect anyone receiving the injection. the massachusetts pharmacy that makes the injection recalling three lots of the drug. >> 1980 spy film. a rushiann-born businessman a secret agent. alexander fushenko will be in court charged with shipping the parts from houston to new york and russia. they include missile guidance systems and detonation systems. russia denying the spy agencies were involved. >> if you are a -- yourr

presidential cand date doesn't win jetblue will offer trips to go to the caribbean. all you have to do is enter into the jetblue election contest. they are giving away more than 1,000 round trip flights. >> that is a great marketing gimmick. >> steve: good for alec baldwin. >> brian: he didn't last time i would have remembered that. he's one of the baldwins that comes by. straight ahead. if you leave the house, a major pharmesutical mix up handing out the wrong generic drugs >> chris: mitt romney made a good case that the president's plan hasn't worked. did he offer a better option. romney's former debate coach here to weigh in. who won last night. "fox and friends". note ♪ ♪ hero of the moment. ♪

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>> steve: last night in the debate governor romney borrowed a phrase or gaffe by joe biden using it to blame the president for the mess we are n >> under the president's policy middle income americans are buried and just being crush seen their income come down by $4300 and the same

time gas leann prices doubled and food prices are up. health care gone up $2500 per family. >> gretchen: here is a former debate coach to mitt romney and congressman michele bachmann. these are exciting moments the day after. you analyze the person you worked w. how did he do? >> he did fantastic. and he went on offense from the beginning of the debate and never let up. the president was defensive and by the end of the debate, it was obvious that the president was uncomfortable on the stage and irritate anxious for the debate to be over. >> steve: he looked bored and appeared thin skinned and he kept looking down. i thought he was writing something down. >> no, it is a body language and a tell that the president

knew he was being beat last night. both men are not good on the defense. and the president looked almost from the get go like he was going to play defense all night. it was like a football team going in the defense who ends up losing and that's what happened last night. >> gretchen: is that because you can't use the same language on the stump because you are called out for it when you are on the stage with the other cand date. >> maybe, there was several lines of argument. 47 percent didn't come up. and bain capital didn't come up and the president didn't press him on his taxes and a charge he made in the white house briefing room. and so there were a lot of things that the president didn't do last night. >> steve: but he's the president. and people don't tell him what to do and i think he got a little peeved when the moderator reminded him his time was up. watch this. >> now the last point i make.

>> two minutes is up, sir. >> no, i had five seconds before you interrupted me. >> gretchen: i think. >> he went on to speak. >> gretchen: that rubbed me the wrong way . moments that romney struck the wrong way. i oner how people felt at home. what was your reaction . >> you never argue with a moderator and especially jim lerer and done lots of these before. the president's tone went from sharp to cutting toward the end of the debate and if you notice as he was addressing governor romney he was cut had a bigger edge because he was on the defense. >> steve: sure, so many people in the swing state saw a million of those 30 second ads which the obama camp tried to portray mitt romney as a corporate pirate or geico. last night he was charm warm and good natured and he had a bunch of good ideas where as

the president said a lot of stuff that we heard four years ago, bret. >> that's right. this was by far governor romney's best debate. >> steve: ever. >> ever. he was on point and took it to the president and never left him off. >> steve: was that like the president -- worst debate. >> he had moments of you are likeable enough, hillary. this is the president obama comes out if you do what you need to do tie the economy to the president. governor romney never let that up and used $90 billion figure twice and not once. how it was worth 50 years was what regular oil and gas companies would have gotten and used it in the end to say that $90 billion could have been used to hire teachers. >> gretchen: what could be a headline and important with independent voters.

he romney ironically talked about being the uniter and chief last night. >> that was very interesting. he cast a much bigger vision than the president did. >> steve: sounds like you would give mitt romney an a? >> absolutely. >> steve: what about the president. >> a c, when you don't do your homework you deserve a worse grade. it was obvious he had not prepared. >> steve: thank you for joining us live. >> gretchen: they print bibles but the white house said they are not a religious organization. how does that work? we'll break it down for you. >> steve: nation's most elite warriors and celebrate 50 years of service. one of the first greenn beret deployed to iraq here in the studio. you are watching "fox and friends" for a busy thursday. how are you. ♪

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>> gretchen: 24 minutes after the top of the hour. quick headlines. investors hit with a stock glitch. this sent dozens of trades cancel error caused share to soar after the opening bell. it caused shares to climb 25 percent after the opening bell. tigers miguel cabrera now wears the triple crown. [applause] his first triple crown winner in 45 yearrs. cabrera led the american league with a 330 batting average. and 43 home runs and 139 rbi's.

brian? ♪ >> brian: america's heroes taking on the most dangerous missions behind enemy lines to protect our freedom. in this group and approximatize nothing unconventional warfare was honored for 50 years was service right here in the big apple. retired green beret master sergeant was the emcee of the event. thank you so much for your service and thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> brian: defense was part of the debates while you were busy. i want you to hear what gov mitt romney said. tell me if it ren're resinates with you. >> first life and liberty, we have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberty of our people and that means a military second to none. i don't believe in cutting the military and maintaining the strength of the military. >> brian: it is cut already. 500 billion looms in the next

month over the next 10 years. how worried are you? >> i am very worried. my friends who are working for the government and contributing and supporting the military don't know what the future is for themselves. they are supporting our special operators on the very edge of battle and watching all of the conversation about defense spending cuts and they are just worried about how to protect themselves. >> brian: i see that good looking guy behind you. what have you done in the last 10 years? >> i recently retired and finished up as sergeant of the task force and special operations and i returned to afghanistan as an advisor for petraeus. >> brian: look at that picture to the right. that looks follow. go ahead. >> right behind me besides the bad mustache. we are training th new iraqi counter terrorism force. >> brian: that was you in bin laden's compound.

where they did the famous going through the monkey bars and everything. this is just there. >> what you see there, remember all of the jihadi videos and they popumm out of the ground. that ring i have was made from the mine which bin laden was mining to sponsor terrorism. >> brian: we don't know what you are doing. what should we know about what you guys need? >> special forces and navy seals and all of the special operators are quiet professionals and we are in places that america doesn't understand rightt now. we are in the very beginning and on the edges was terrorism and stability or anything that the countryy deems important that said special operator to. >> brian: lik getting redemption for the murders of the ambassador we may hear about an operation there? >> you would hear afterwards.

immediately they are train preparing and understand the environment and we are inserted in to the environment. we are raising additional forces to you know react to the government or we are doing counter terrorism. >> brian: bin laden is dead . sadly al-qaida isn't. what should we know about the state of the main enemy. >> they regenerate and we killed many, many leaderships of al-qaida and they continue on. >> brian: we want to support what you do. and a lot of people want to support. how do we do it? >> support the green beret foundation at greenberetfoundation.org. we have many events and partnered with the pga and do special shooting events and puts corporate partners with the green berets. we do a lot of things. >> brian: thank you for what you have done. master sergeant scott neal

thank you so much. meanwhile coming up straight ahead. they both promised to fight for the middle class. which cand date made the stronger case. and a story for all business travelers out there. a suitcase for people who are too lazy or tire to pull it behind them. happy birthday to my high school class mate john, he's 50 today. ♪ ♪ today's birthday is brought to you by charman. ?,0 with a new duraclean texture, charmin ultra strong helps you get clean. plus it's four times stronger than the leading value brand. and you can use up to four times less. good news for even the biggest kids in the family. we all go.

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responsibility. what's your policy? starts with ground beef, unions, and peppers baked in a ketchup glaze with savory gravy and mashed russet potatoes. what makes stouffer's meatloaf best of all? that moment you enjoy it at home. stouffer's. let's fix dinner.

>> today was not only the first presidential debate. it was president obama's 20th wedding anniversary. yeah. i think the president got confused at one point he told michele she was out of touch with the middle class and

romney he was beautiful as the day met. >> gretchen: today is my 15th wedding anniversary. >> steve: congratulation . >> gretchen: hi, hone, i know you are about to get on the plane. happy birthday to judy who is 70 today and a faithful viewer of "fox and friends". thanks for viewing our shows. >> steve: way to go. >> gretchen: first presidential debate of three on the books. both sides say romney took the night. how did he separate himself from the president? joining us live from denver and alisia up bright and early and looking good in yellow. hello. >> only way to stay away. both the president and governor romney courted the middle class and each presented themselves as its defender and trying to remain focus on the economy. it began cordially and moved to both men drawing stark

differences. governor romney set out the goals. which was to correct the misinformation about him and bring out more specifics for the plan for the future. the president is viewed as not giving his best performance and spending time on defense. >> four years ago i stood on the stage and said i would cut taxes for middle class families and that's what i did. we cut taxes for middle class families by about $35 -- $3600. and the reason is that i believe we do best when the middle class is doing well. and by giving them those tax cuts they had little more money in their pocket to buy's a new car and in the position to weather the extraordinary resegwe went through. >> the evidence of the last four years is extraordinary. what we are seeing in my view is a trickle down government

aproachh that has government thinking they can do a better job than free people pursuing the dreams. and that is not working. proof is 23 million out of work and one in six people in poverty and gone from 32 million on food stamps to fren percent on food stamp. 50 percent o college graduates this year can't find work. >> one week from today will be the vice-presidential debate and two more presidential debates before electionn day. back to you guys. >> steve: thank you. there are two ways to tell how the debate was received. look at the instant polls. cn n did one with two-thirds thought that romney won . twitter, watching live from the couches. bill maeh. i can't believe i am saying this. obama looks like he does need

a teleprompter. >> gretchen: and a tweet from larry sabito. i can't wait to hear the back story how a obama debate team misjudged the face off. poor prep. >> brian: by the y firing back angry big bird opened up her twitter site or is it a he. if you know. >> steve: his first name is pat. >> brian: maybe. all right. said i like pbs and in response to mitt romney. how can romney cut big bird. the more he tweets and the angrier i got. i put it on twitter. i asked what people thought and zillions of responses and one of which is from, they say that romney's new song how do you like me now. >> gretchen: london telegraft

said mitt romney is not like ronald reagan obama looks like jimmie carter. >> steve: a number of people on the left said this is not going well for our guy in the debate. in fact, afterwards, they couldn't blame the president for being poorly prepared, but members of the campaign blamed jim lehrer for being a lousy moderator . this is what al tweeted. i hope jim lehrer gets the license plate of the truck that went over him. >> brian: they went over with the two minute talks. and seeing the look on jim's face and they plowed over him . he was like oh, really again. that is the most important thing about the moderator, so much talk about whether or not the questions would be fair and would romney get the same questions barack did and fair amount of time for them to

speak theirr points and to stop speaking about their pointsyou can't argue he was not fair. he may not be effective but he was fair. >> brian: the president wanted to be miles per hour else. he did not put his a game. pat told greta mitt did a great job. a week ago they said it was over. he drove the debate and mitt seized on the opportunity. the president was rusty and hasn't had anyone talk to him like that for four years. >> steve: you have to figure there is movement in the polls. we'll look at the headlines. seal team 6didn't kill osama bin laden president obama would have put him on trial? oh, well, is that is a surprising revelation in the book, the finish. it said that president obama planned to hold a criminal trial in federal court if bin laden was captured. the book said he felt dew

processs and the rule of law would be the best weapon against al-qaida. >> gretchen: the world's largest generic drug maker pulling the drug antidepressant from a storage shelve. wellbuttrin. it doesn't work like it is supposed to. they found wharf it is. it released. okay it releases faster than the original drug in 2008. federal officials said the two were. now you know why i am not a pharmacist. >> brian: plus you hate the cotton balls. >> gretchen: i do. >> brian: how could a christian bible house not religious. they asked for a exemption of the controversial birth.

tyndale house said the ma date violates the beliefs. he said 95 percent of the profits go to non. >> steve: it is the laziest invention ever. the hop and suitcase that follows you around. using the blue tooth signal on your cell phone. fine as long as someone doesn't use yourr cell phone. if it is lost, the bag locks itself and alert the owner's phone. the 28 year old who came up with the idea said it is not ready for the market. >> gretchen: looks like you can get a pair of underwear. what is the size of that thing. can we get dimensions? >> brian: it looks maul and like a doocy case. >> steve: who is going to walk that slowly throughh the airport? hello. >> brian: unless you are up to manage and a at burglar .

>> steve: work the bugs out. >> brian: you will hear about a president who had a better night than the governor and current president altogether. you will hear some point. 92 can you narrow it down. i am tryying to plan my day. >> brian: in the next three hours. >> steve: next up on the run down. brian will not tell us. but one of the best things about facebook, it is free. but there is a plann to charge you for facebook. >> gretchen: who won the undecided votersses in last night's debate. frank lund sits down with swing voters in the state of colorado. his results are next, don't miss it. ♪ ♪ olesterol,

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>> brian: quick headlines now. you feel like yourr favorite facebook pictures are not getting enough 7 bucks gets your comments to the top of the news feed. and what the hey is with this guy? what is he thinking? he decided to use a car to transport a giant bale of hay after the tractor broke. he was stopped for dangerous driving. i will follow that story.

my life is empty. >> steve: kind of looks like the dog car from dumb and dumber. >> brian: yes. >> steve: democrats thought president obama seemed off his game during last night's debate. will independent voters see it as a sign of weakness. franklin sat down with independents in the swing state of colorado. >> what is the key moment of the campaign so far didn't just happen on the debate stage. it happened in the suburb of dep ver. we had 24 undecided vores reacting to every moment of the debate. let's do a show of hands. how many of you think barack obama won the debate. raise your hands. how many of you voted for him in 2008, raise your hands . okay. something happened and something went wrong. give he a word to describe

pumbum's. >> change was lost tonight. >> flat, arrogant. defensive. >> more factual. >> weak. >> reflective. >> defensive. >> unorganized. >> no confidence. >> slow. >> lacked specificings. >> defensive. >> flat. >> off his game. >> hon evaporate. >> careful. >> resigned. >> anti-free market. >> he is a good orrator. >> lacked passion and clarity. >> tired. defensive. that's the number one answer. you said defensive. i want to show you one of the clips that probably illustrates that reaction that you just saw here. obama takes 30 seconds to communicate a key point but he never gets to that point and you will see how flat the lines are. let's take a look. >> governor romney said top three percent are job creators and they would be burdened.

under governor romney's definition there is a bunch of millionaire billionaires is small business. donald trump is small business. he doesn't like to think he is small anything. that is how you define small business. that kind of a approach will not grow our economy because the only way to pay for it without burdening the middle class or blowing up our deficit is to make drastic cuts in things like education, making sure that we are continuing to invest in basic science and research. >> guys, he was flat in the performance why? >> no teleprompter. really in >> absolutely. >> why else, tell me . >> no passion. >> explain that. >> he didn't have enthusiasm for what he was talking about and he didn't feel strongly. >> you guys agree with that?

>> yes. >> he is contemplating a bit. he has his record that he can't talk about. >> he couldn't defend his record and he couldn't get near his record. so how could he defend it? >> why do you say that. >> romney had facts and statistics and obama had generalities of helping people and feeling good, but not the tools to implement what had to be done. >> i mean, romney didn't have that man facts but obama did. i will give you obama is tired and he's president and it is a rough time and he knows he's president. and he aged 10-20 years and he's doing. and give you a little lack of energy, when he's out there. >> all rightt for the record, ken. you have more energy that barack obama. now we are coming back to you a little laterr on in the show and talk about romney.

we tried to talk about barack obama. undecided voters switch the topic. we'll get back to it. back to you. >> steve: minutes before the top of the hour. the president debuted a new catch phrase. economic patriotism where the rich pay more. is that what it means to be patriotic. we'll ask a member of the president's finance team. and a high school heist that was all too real for julianne moore, you will find out more straight ahead. ♪ . note you got to change your evil ways, baby. ♪ before i start loving you. ♪ you have on got to change, baby. ♪ and every word. by making it without 100% real cheddar cheese.

but then...it wouldn't be stouffer's mac & cheese. just one of over 70 satisfying recipes for one from stouffer's.

>> gretchen: the president argued last night for a new economic patriism. this was in the debate. what does that mean? here is the president. >> governor romney has a perspective that said if we cut taxs and skew toward the wealth scheroll back regulations that we will be better off. i have a different view. are we going to double down on the top down economic policies that got us in this mess or embrace a new economic patriotism that said america does best when the middle class does best. >> gretchen: being a patriot means paying more. here with is a donor to obama campaign good morning to both of you. let me get your reaction.

you are vocal about the so-called class warfare rhetoric. you support and fund raised for. did you hear more in the economic patriotism line >> no, the president toned down the rhetoric in terps of the divisiveness on taxes. i thought governor romney did a good job explaining the impact of what the tax on the top three percent of taxpayers who are generally maul business owners and employ 25 percent of the nation's employees. i thought that the president focused more on the difference between the two approaches in terms of how they would close the gap on spending. and the president wants to protect policies and programs and i think that that was a big difference between the two of them. >> gretchen: heather economic patriotism to me. does it mean if you don't agree with the president you are not a patriot and is that

another way of talking about class warfare. >> coercion is not patriotism and tax rates are not about patriotism. there is differences in what is fairness. romney came up with better lines with his talking about the economic tax on the middle class and the fact that their next are declining even though the recession technically ended three years ago . every year they earn less . talk about trickle down government. and the fact government has grown so much. we did a study of independents and one of the thing that is is fascinating to the degree to which obama relies on economic illiteracy. we took facts that are well documented and if you know that they are true, you are 30 points likely to vote for romney. if you don't believe they are true you vote for obama. one of the things we discuss on the show .

at least my belief that obama is successful in simplifying all of the arguments to the american people. mr. peoples do you agree with that? >> no, i think the president has focused on showing the difference between the two. the issue of fairness is something we need to get away americans paying more taxes is not fairness. that is an issue of whether or not our government needs more money to carry out the functions to help those who can't help themselves. last night and i think the campaign will continue to be about the economy and jobs, but also, the president needs to shift the focus much more on his broader accomplishments. i thought that the healthcare debate was interesting and that romney was able to attempt to draw contrasts between what he had done in massachusetts and what the president has done and basically the difference is putting it in the state's hands than the federal government. >> gretchen: exactly.

heather 10 seconds. >> romney did an outstanding job. obama is trying to turn him into to thurston howell . romney came across as sympathetic as to the problems americans face. he did it with knowledge of the facts. he did not need a teleprompter. >> gretchen: thank you for your time this morning. >> thank you, >> thank you. >> gretchen: the president used aarp to support romney's plan. maybe he should have checked with them first. they were not happy about it. >> and next to morning. ann coult yoer and larry the cable by and senenor john mccain. stay with us. when making soup. mmmm! [ female announcer ] the secret is swanson.

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buy four select tires, get a $60 rebate. use the ford service credit credit card, get $60 more. that's up to $120. where did you get that sweater vest? your ford dealer. >> gretchen: good morning, everyone. told is thursday, october 4, 2012. i'm gretchen carlson. i hope you're gonna have a great day. round one goes to mitt romney who hit the president where it hurts. on his record. >> $90 billion, like 50 years worth of breaks into solar and wind. i mean, i had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers. >> gretchen: was last night a game changer for mitt? michelle malkin is here with her reaction. >> brian: as we wait on the polls. the president used the aarp to support his attack on mitt romney's medicare plan. listen. >> i don't think vouchers are the right way to go.

this is not my -- only my opinion. aarp thinks that the savings that we obtained from medicare bolstered the system. >> brian: really? the love song between the president and aarp is over. they made that clear. we'll expand. >> steve: the aarp not the only ones bashing the president's performance. liberals like bill maher left dazed and confused officially. "fox & friends" hour two for thursday starts right now. >> gretchen: snoozy animation there with the presidential seal. welcome, everyone. did you get a chance to see the debate last night? i hope that lots of americans watched the debate last night. >> brian: i think between 40 and 60. i imagine the higher side of 60.

i don't know if they can count the ipads and lap tops. if they did, i think everybody was tuned in. for the first time you had a chance to see these guys shoulder to shoulder without a script, with just the topics and with both being called out on their stump speeches and by looking what you're saying on the twitter and on what they called the twitter and -- looks like the president had a horrendous night and he did not make eye contact. he looked disinterested. he looked more like the guy who would rather be at the hoover dam like he was during the day as opposed to at night. mitt romney knew his stuff from top to bottom. you might not agree with him, but you can't say he didn't know. >> steve: it kind of looked like -- there they are at the end where the families came up on stage to congratulate the two candidates. it looked like throughout the hour and a half that harvard law school versus harvard business school. oh, yeah, mitt romney also went to harvard law.

maybe it did seem like he did outgun the president last night. aiolis i can't is live -- alicia is live in denver. >> as expected, they kept much of the focus on the economy last night. they also tackled medicare, role of the federal government, deficit. governor romney had set out to correct information that he said was put out by the obama camp that was incorrect. he was reviewed instantly on-line as being the better prepared and more forceful of the two, and spent a lot of time defining his plans and taking it to the president on the last four years. there were a lot of arguments about math. one example, obama charged the governor wants to cut taxes by $5 trillion and add 2 trillion in defense spending. >> we tried this, we've tried both approaches. the approach that governor romney is talking about is the same sales pitch that was made in 2001 and 2003 and we ended up

with the slowest job growth in 50 years. >> my plan is not like anything that's been tried before. my plan is to bring down rates, but also bring down the deductions and eliminations and credits at the same time so the revenue stays in, but that we bring down rates to get more people working. we talk about evidence, look at the evidence of the last four years. it's absolutely extraordinary. we've got 23 million people out of work, or stopped looking for work in this country. >> if the president's team sees room for improvement, there are two other opportunities later this month in two other presidential debates. back to you. >> gretchen: thanks so much for that breakdown. it's time to bring in michelle malkin now to see what she thinks happened last night. are you stunned at sort of the reaction that seems to be so one sided, that it was so obvious who the winner apparently was? >> i'm not stunned. i'm actually quite amused by all

of the hair pulling and chin pulling that occurred last night afterwards. i always think it's better to be underestimated than overestimated and i think in this case, barak obama suffered from his own hubrus. he strolled in thinking he could phone it in. it reminded me several weeks ago we had national empty chair day. it looked like national empty podium day there yesterday for him. rather unfortunate. i think he's not going to take it for granted the next time. >> brian: what i saw interesting, for example, when you hear the president talk about tax breaks fort oil companies and for the rich and the corporate jet owners, as if they're the problem, i thought it was very interesting and a calculated way, mitt romney was able to spell out why they are not the problem and take the corporate oil -- excuse me, take the oil company tax breaks, put it in perspective and compare it to the green energy. a lot of people who do this for a living and hoping not to be vilified, which they were for

the last 3 1/2 years, must have felt pretty good. >> yeah. romney was incredibly effective. he looked competent. he sounded confident. he was engaged. he was everything that barak obama was not. i think it was a reminder to people of just how disengaged this president has been in times of crisis. and i think the other thing that people were really looking for, not just the conservative base because certainly we were all extremely happy about how he did, but i think independents and we saw this, that undecideds were very moved and swayed by romney's performance yesterday. they saw somebody who was not afraid to back down and defend his principles and defend success in america. it was very powerful. >> steve: according to a cbs news poll last night, about half say romney won. but michelle, 56% say that their opinion of romney changed for the better. only 13% say their opinion of mr. obama changed for the

better. in the meantime, you know what? president obama showed that he was a little thin skinned last night and, in fact, told the moderator how to do his job, but first before we see that, let's see mitt romney on the tear last night. >> i don't want to cost jobs. my priority is jobs. so what i do is i bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind bowles simpson. get the rates down, to create more jobs because there is nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than have more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes. that's by far the most effective and efficient way to get this budget balanced. >> jim, you may want to move on to another topic. >> steve: up with of the things about the president last night is for all of the many points that mitt romney had right up here, and he was able to effectively communicate them, the president had nothing.

>> yeah. throw me a left one, jim, hurry up. it was great. and i thought mitt romney did a fabulous job of very methodically -- methodically dissecting barak obama. there was one case, it might have been during that exchange where he wandered from talking about the corporate jets, to medicaid, to pulling out some really irrelevant acin the case dote and romney was able to come back a, b, c, d, e, respond to each and every one of these points. and he just didn't let obama get away with the same kind of talking points and recycling that so many of the left dog media journalists have over the course of this campaign. >> gretchen: i think that's the headline of the night actually because people were calling this race over and people were saying that these debates might not matter. i totally disagreed with that, by the way.

but to me, it was this opportunity for the american public to see both candidates on the same stage for the first time where they couldn't get away with just doing the stump speech and where they were going to be challenged by one another. i think you saw a stark difference. >> yes. in particular with really popping the bubble with regard to the class war demagoguery. i think where romney shined the most was when he was able to display when he was able to show and appreciate the role of small business. >> brian: i want to you hear when they talked green energy, you think the president would embrace this. i don't think in retrospect he does. listen. >> don't forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years worth of breaks into solar and wind to solyndra and fisker and tesla, i mean, i had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers.

>> steve: zing. >> ouch. >> brian: go ahead. >> oh, no. i was just going to say it's about time that this came to the forefront with no help from jim lehrer, you'll notice, that the massive failure of these billion dollars investments in all of these crony green job companies and the business of very relevant in a state like colorado especially as well, where when you pick these winners and losers, or as romney's friend said, all of the losers, that the people who were most competitive in the marketplace. >> brian: we also know the president had aarp in his back pocket for the longest time. they were cited when the president said look at my plan, aarp supports it and they want out. they want no more. they released a statement last night essentially saying keep us out of this election. we want to be nonpartisan. which i was stunned. but how hypocritical. when the rubber hit the road and

they decided to support the obamacare, that had a lot to do with it moving forward that. provided a lot of cover for many people. >> that's exactly right. and i haven't forgotten that. you haven't forgotten that. i think people who paid attention during the debate didn't. but i think it's very telling that one of the closest allies and enablers of obamacare is now cutting and running from obama. remember, that the aarp benefited from waivers during the obamacare debauchle and also afterwards, of course, had to admit to their own membership that their insurance rates were rising as a result of adopting this thing that they had championed. >> steve: something you championed because you're the proprietor of twitchy.com, you

look at all the tweet, the biggest tweet night in the whole world's history, here is something that bill maher tweeted. i can't believe i'm saying this, but obama looks like he does need a teleprompter. it was pretty clear pretty early thanks to things like twitter that the left turned on the president. they thought he didn't bring his a game. he was lucky if he brought a c game. >> yeah. that's exactly right. the holly weird set which has invested so much, both emotionally and in bill maher's case financially as the number one donor of the dirty super pac that had lied and lied and lied about romney not very happy. not giving him an a at all in that debate. >> brian: i don't care what bill maher says every day, including today. >> gretchen: it will be interesting to see how the performances change for debate number two, if they do. michelle malkin, thanks so much. have a great day. >> you bet, you, too. >> gretchen: brand-new developments overnight. yeah, there is foreign policy to talk about, too. turkey firing artillery rounds into syria for the second straight day now.

comes one day after a shell fire from inside syria landed on a home in turkey, leaving a mother, her three daughters and another woman dead. syria later offered its condolences. the story has all the makings of a 1980 spy film. russian born businessman accused of operating a secret agent. shipping sensitive information to his native country. he's accused of shipping them from houston, texas to russia. the technology includes items used in radar system, missile guidance systems and detonation triggers. russia denying spy agencies were involved. 15 artists vying for a spot no the rock'n'roll hall of fame. ♪ >> public enemy among the nurse time nominees eligible. artists must have released their work at least 25 years before appearing on the ballot. for the first time this year action fans can vote on-line, boosting their favorite group's

chances of making the cut. the winners will be revealed in december. >> steve: straight month, last month 90% of major u.s. cities saw their unemployment rates drop. but that's not necessarily a good thing, believe it or not, according to that guy walking in to studio e. >> brian: who is that? >> steve: stuart varney. >> brian: then we all know about the chicken who crossed the road, right? but an emu? >> steve: tastes like chicken. >> brian: wait 'til you hear what he was looking for. you tasted one? >> steve: i've had ostrich 0t[h7

overmany discounts to thine customers! [old english accent] safe driver, multi-car, paid in full -- a most fulsome bounty indeed, lord jamie. thou cometh and we thy saveth! what are you doing? we doth offer so many discounts, we have some to spare. oh, you have any of those homeowners discounts? here we go. thank you. he took my shield, my lady. these are troubling times in the kingdom. more discounts than we knoweth what to do with. now that's progressive.

>> we've got 23 million people out of work. or stopped looking for work in this country. when the president took office 32 million people on food stamps, 47 million on food stamps today, economic growth this year, slower than last year, and last year slower than the year before? going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the american people who are struggling today. >> gretchen: that was mitt romney last night hammering the president on the sluggish economy. but last month a new report shows unemployment actually dropped in 90% of major u.s. cities. how could that be? here to break it down, stuart varney on the "fox business" network. how could it be? >> it is an illusion. it is an illusion.

it is smoke and mirrors. and governor romney hammered the president on this last night. look, the unemployment rate has indeed come down. why has it come down? because of the creation of a whole bunch of new jobs? no. because literally millions and millions of people have just quit. they've dropped out. they are not looking for work. they're out of the labor market. in august alone, 368,000 people dropped out in one month. they just walked away from the labor force. that just is in one month. since january of 2009 when president obama came into office, 8,419,000 people have just walked away from the labor force. when you shrink the labor force like that, the unemployment rate does indeed go down. >> gretchen: you think the debate last night, that it was effective for romney to point that out, because one of the arguments that i've made is that when the unemployment rate went down from 8.3 to 8.1, that on the simple terminology of just

look at the number, that people would go oh, the economy is getting so much better. >> yes. it looks good, doesn't it? that's where the illusion comes in, 'cause it does look good. if your headline is, unemployment rate comes down, if that's all you -- >> gretchen: and that would be the headline a lot. >> it was indeed the headline. >> gretchen: until you look at the details. >> but you got to look deeper and assess the real state of america. an america with 8 million people walking away from the labor market, an america with fewer people in work than there were in 2001, that is not a prosperous america. that is not an america that's going in the right direction. that's what governor romney hammered last night i think with great effect. i think he won the policy debate, economic policy debate. >> gretchen: we're going to be hearing more about it on your show, i know. >> yes. >> gretchen: 9:20 on the "fox business" network. check it out with varney and company. always a good time there. we'll see you tomorrow. he's accused of murdering 12 people, james holmes says he's the victim? his civil rights are being violated? then they voted for obama in

2008. what are they thinking now after last night's debate? frank luntz up next with the fascinating revelation. right back. i've been a superintendent for 30 some years at many different park service units across the united states. the only time i've ever had a break is when i was on maternity leave. i have retired from doing this one thing that i loved. now, i'm going to be able to have the time to explore something different. it's like another chapter.

>> steve: i love being here in the control room. news by the numbers. $127,000. that's the value of all the jewelry swiped from julianne moore's new york city apartment. the heist happened while the actress was filming a movie in canada. next, one dollar a day. that's how much manhattan teen-agers are paid for cell

phone have lays. d -- valets. let's them leave their phones inside while they go to school. $5,600, that's how much virginia car dealership accidentally cut from the price of this chevy suv. but when the customer refused to give it back, they arrested him for stealing. oh, man. brian? >> brian: all right. last hour, a group of independent vote increase colorado gave us their reaction to president obama's performance in last night's debate. frank luntz is back with them to see how mitt romney faired. can you hear me? >> early in the show, you heard from our denver undecided voters, what they thought of barak obama. show of hands. how many of you voted for john mccain in 2008? okay. minority of you. how many thought mitt romney won this debate in 2012, raise your hands? almost all of you. so give me a word or phrase to

describe romney's performance today. >> showmanship, stage craft. >> noncommittal. >> principled. >> articulate and command of the facts. >> clearly passionate and definitive. >> mostly shallow. >> determined. >> articulate and energetic. >> passion and vibrant. >> demonstrated experience. >> in control. >> determined and optimistic. >> prepared and passionate. >> i thought insincere. >> well coached and prepared. >> vague and as usual. >> leadership. >> direct. >> knowledgeable, yet defensive. >> confident. >> political and nonspecific. >> decisive. >> energized. >> passionate with truth. >> what's the number one issue facing denver and colorado -- who here thinks it's jobs? okay.

there is one moment when mitt romney looked at barak obama and said, you shouldn't be focusing on other issues. his priority is jobs. here is one of mitt romney's high points in the debate. let's look how it dialed. >> my priority is putting people back to work in america. they're suffering in this country. we talk about evidence. look at the evidence of the last four years! it's absolutely extraordinary. we've got 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work in this country. when the president took office 32 million people on food stamps, 47 million on food stamps today. economic growth this year, slower than last year and last year, slower than the year before. going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the american people who are struggling today. >> tell me, why was mitt romney so good on jobs? >> he said trickle down government instead of trickle down on supply side economics, which was an interesting point that i had never heard before. >> somebody else? >> been there, done that.

>> explain it. >> he's run companies. he knows how to start these companies and make them work. >> putting people back to work comes down to good, pure leadership which came through. his leadership as ceo, quality, i thought really became a big part of what he had to say. >> his ability to craft solutions as opposed to forcing solutions as we've seen over the last four years. >> stop wasting money on big government. >> he was very credible. i think he understood the interplay between the economy and job creation. >> he's more in tune with what the american people want. >> this is a country divided both republican and democrats, we have to work together to solve these things. i think that what obama did was to try to divide the country while we went down republican -- >> and romney? >> worked in massachusetts. how difficult that must have been, but things got done. he worked on it. >> if this is a reflection on what's happening in america based on this debate, these numbers are going to change because these are the swing

voters in one of the most important swing states in america, colorado and they clearly swung towards mitt romney. back to you. >> brian: all right. we'll be like that, just use pronouns. our coverage of the debate continues in two minutes. up next, the biggest zingers from last night. we have ann colt who are is a zinger in her own right and she's got a book out. don't ask me how i know. what would have happened if seal team 6 hadn't killed osama bin laden? a new book says the president would have given him due process in federal court. at least the magazine story about that book says it. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios

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>> congratulations to you, mr. president, on your anniversary. i'm sure this was the most

romantic place you could imagine here with me. i like pbs, i love big bird. i actually like you, too. but i'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from china to pay for. >> at some point i think the american people have to ask themselves is the reason governor romney is keeping all these plans to replace secret because they're too good? >> i got five boys. i'm used to people saying something that's not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping i'll believe it. but that is not the case. >> i had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers. mr. president, you're entitled as president to your own airplane and house, but not your own fact. >> the last point i'd make before -- >> your minutes are up. >> no, i had five seconds before you interrupted me -- was -- >> steve: oh, man. the author of the "new york times" top ten best selling brand-new book called "mug," ann coulter. it's interesting the president pointed out i had for might have

seconds on the clock. >> and then talked for ten minutes. >> steve: the president had spoken five minutes longer than mitt romney. >> right. right. i think he's trying to transmit to the american people he doesn't want this job. relieve me of my duty. i want to golf and hang out. >> gretchen: he wants the job, okay. what's your real analysis of what the performance was? >> i really think he was a disaster. i mean, part of it is he's never been challenged in his entire life. every place he goes, he gets a standing ovation. he becomes president and wins the nobel peace prize. he's never been challenged before and was up against mccain last time and romney was spectacular. i've been a supporter of romney for a long time and i noticed during the primaries and many of my friends were not. and every time they would see him give a speech, different people, they'd say, wow. that was the best speech i've ever seen. if he had just been talking like that from the beginning. and i'd say, he has been!

you're not watching, which is why i was totally confident he would be magnificent and mitt romney was really good last night and he will be good in all the debates, even the town hall which i think are so stupid. >> brian: proportionally, how much do you think this has to do with mitt romney just bringing a good game to the table and how much is it because the president was at the hoover dam and visiting his headquarters and not really into preparing? >> yes, well -- >> brian: how much did romney win and how much did the president lose? >> it was some of both, but the fact that obama didn't prepare, i mean, this is like him not being prepared for the attack on our consulate. he never prepares. he just expects to walk out, be cool, and get a standing ovation. >> gretchen: or is it more that you can't prepare for things that you can't defend? >> no, he was very, very bad last night. he looked depressed. he looked anemic. those big ears poking out. the first time i watched the debate, i was mostly listening to it and romney was killing. and then i watched it again and

toward the end was actually watching it and visual made it so much more as obama was depressed and looking down. you knew by the end, anniversary or not, michelle wanted to go home. >> brian: before the show, when mitt romney hugged his kids, he looked like a guy that won the super bowl. like i just exhaled, oh, my goodness. i did it. >> gretchen: also you got -- >> also you got this sense of what a decent man he is. they can keep portraying him as an elitist and a snob. you can see this is a decent man who cares about america. >> steve: and he knows what he's doing behind the debate lectern. last night when mr. obama stepped into his stump speech attacking mitt romney on how he's going to raise taxes on the middle class, you know, so millionaires and billionaires can get a $5 trillion tax cut, mr. romney said, hold the phone, mr. president. watch this. >> governor romney's proposal that he's been promoting for 18

months calls for a $5 trillion tax cut on top of $2 trillion of additional spending for our military. and he is saying that he is going to pay for it by closing loopholes and deductions. >> virtually everything you just said about any tax plan is inaccurate. >> steve: that's what a lot of people on the right have been saying for a while. when the president says something, that is a lie, call him on it and mitt romney did last night. >> that's right. but he was -- the beginning especially, obama kept going through the same tired talking points, over and over again, even after romney said, that isn't my tax plan. let me tell you again what i'm going to do. by the way, explaining it beautifully, believably, accurately, but also not in too complicated manner. another great moment for romney was when he described how private enterprise actually does stuff better than the government when it comes to health care. that was a brilliant

explanation. >> gretchen: does it change the polls? >> yeah. part of this will be for the media to explain why they've been lying about the polls. i think that's why even they are admitting romney killed last night. but this was so spectacular, i think this is landslide material. i think this could carry todd aiken to victory. >> brian: i think you have to get a breathalyzer. "mugged" is the book. go out and get it. it's very good. >> it's excellent. >> steve: thank you very much. other big news this morning, even more details emerging on the terrorist attack on our consulate in benghazi, libya. the state department confirming there were over a dozen threats in the months before. katherine hedge live in washington with the details. >> good morning. a letter from the house government oversight committee is asking the state department to provide at least two witnesses for the hearing on security lapses next week, including state department regional security officer eric nordstrom who was stationed in libya from september last year until june 2012. the committee led by republican darrell issa with ranking member

cummings was briefed by nordstrom who confirmed 13 threats against the u.s. consulate in the six months before the terrorist attack and that the mission made repeated requests for extra security. this notice will be published by the state department about his internal investigation into the attack known as accountability review board or arb. it reads in part, quote, the board will submit its conclusions and recommendations to secretary clinton within 60 days of its first meeting, unless the chair determines a need for additional time. in simple terms, no time limit. do not expect anything before the election. now more than three weeks after the attack, the consulate in benghazi is still not secure. according to a "washington post" reporter on the ground in benghazi, sensitive documents, including the personnel files and records outlining efforts to rounds up loose weapons in libya can be found in plain sight. a republican on the house government oversight committee is criticizing the administration's state of of reliance on the f.b.i.

investigation given agents are not in benghazi. >> the area is too dangerous for the f.b.i., but it wasn't dangerous enough for this administration to increase security. i'd like to ask that and i plan on doing it next week. >> fox news has confirmed the state department has yet to provide documents, including e-mails and other communications about security to republican senators corker, isakson, and the house intelligence committee. guys, back to you. >> steve: thank you. live report from the bureau. >> brian: doing incredible work on this story. >> gretchen: she is. she's basically breaking news about this whole thing. >> brian: the f.b.i. has not been there yet, so how could the state department be running the investigation? >> gretchen: will foreign policy be an important topic at the next debate? stay tuned to find out. >> brian: yeah. i know one at least. he's accused of murdering 12 people in a movie theater, but james holmes says he's the victim and it's all over the release of this mug shot showing him with short brown hair. his attorney says it goes against judge's orders limiting

pretrial publicity. they want tho know how it was leaked. >> gretchen: a field team -- if seal team 6 didn't kill osama bin laden, president obama would have put him on trial. that's the revelation in a new book called "the finish." it says president obama planned to hold a criminal trial in federal court if he was captured. the book says he penalty due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-qaeda. >> steve: need gas? good luck if you live in california. many gas stations there closing up shop because they're running out of gasoline. refinery problems and the closure of a pipeline being blamed for the shortage. and the short supply also driving prices to new highs. in one day, a gallon of gas in california jumped five cents. look at that number right there. regular gas is 4.32 on average. that's more than 50 cents higher than the national average. >> brian: emu, looking for love in all the wrong places, taco is

the name of the emu. loose in florida and trying to track down the better half, i guess. it's mating season, as we all know, and the bird was apparently looking to find a fine feathered friend about his height. match.com doesn't cover emus. he jumped a fence, wandserring onto the highway. it's amazing what you would do for love. his owner showed up and took taco home without a mate. so i imagine the quest is delayed, not denied. >> steve: i found on craigslist one for him if he's interested. >> gretchen: we found out how to pronounce it. epu. that's why brian was pronouncing. it's not emu. >> brian: it's as in e music. >> steve: thank you very much. >> gretchen: you said emu. you got it right. >> brian: yeah. we had someone really clarify. you and this australian viewer. >> gretchen: now we forever know. you say it right. >> brian: the yankees clinched the division last night and the

athletics stunned texas. >> steve: way to go. meanwhile, how did mitt romney win the debate? peter johnson, jr. says a secret weapon rarely used by politicians. he is coming up next. >> gretchen: then did the candidates git er done? larry what, are you doing? oh, man! he's here. i hope he washes his hands before he comes out. i'm not going to shake that hand, larry. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ]

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call or go online now. [♪...] >> brian: quick headlines. potential cure for children with nearsightedness. researchers at suni college developed contact lenses that shaped the eyes to work against it. and mitt romney getting in a game of jinga right before the debate. here he is with ann in their hotel room waiting for his turn to play. he was joined by three of his sons and one of his grandchildren. a good day for jinga. i find it frustrating. more on that when we return. >> you're entitled as president to your own airplane and your own house, but not to your own facts. >> steve: zing. mitt romney comes out swinging

last night and he did stick to the facts, a tactic rarely seen among politicians. his secret weapon, just stating it like it is. peter johnson, jr. joins us live right now. >> it was substance. it was specifics. it was hard facts and in doing it, mitt romney crushed the president last night. i think everybody is agreeing on that. we had our research department here at fox, what's known as the brain room, they looked only at the statistics. i think if we looked at concepts, if we look at other stuff, we'd see it higher. when they went head to head, we see mitt romney delivered the stunning blow in terms of statistic after statistic after statistic, 44 to 33. and banging the president on income being down, banging the president on the health care costs increasing. banging the president on obamacare. one out of six in poverty. it was a stunning and surprising in many ways for many observers

victory in that there was a sense of reasonableness, calm, common sense, while the president looks distracted, not in the present, angry at some times, tortured at other times, uninvolved as if he hadn't slept, and it was really quite remarkable. >> steve: you know what? i was talking to some people on twitter last night and a basic consensus was it looked like a businessman opposing a politician because the businessman had a plan. >> in some ways. but it was more than the businessman much it was a guy who was connecting with americans in terms of empathy and sympathy and saying, my thing is not ideology. my thing is the bottom line. putting people back to work. at the same time, the president looked absolutely lost and when you saw david axelrod interviewed on another network last night, he looked as if the president had been kidnapped in some way. and he wouldn't answer the question about whether the president had done a good job,

whether he would do it differently next time. but he looked like he was in absolute shock. here is the lesson. people want to be trusting their president. people want to have confidence. they want to like their president. the other take away is we've seen a president who has been shielded, who has been protected, who has been in the could coon of the -- cocoon of the main stream media, running for president for a year, president for four years and when he had an opportunity to shine, he didn't shine and the lack of knowledge and specifics was disturbing in a lot of ways. forget about the ideology. that's our president. is that the best our president can do, whether you're for mitt romney or barak obama? it was stunningly embarrassing. >> steve: it was. i think bill clinton bailed the president out of the dnc about 15 minutes in last night, i think he would have liked to call -- >> he need an explainer in chief last night who was missing. >> steve: thank you very much. straight ahead, so which candidate had the best one

liners last night? who better to ask than the king of one liners, larry the cable guy, if we can get him, there he is coming up. good morning. first on this day back in 1987, "here i go again" by white snake was the number one song, as larry sits down on the curvy couch [ male announcer ] in blind taste tests, even ragu users chose prego. prego?! but i've bought ragu for years. [ thinking ] woer what other questionable choices i've made? i choose date number 2! whooo! [ sigh of relf ] [ male announcer ] choose taste. choose prego. try this... bayer? this isn't just a headache. trust me, this is new bayer migraine. [ male announcer ] it's the power of aspirin plus more in a triple action formula to relieve your tough migraines. new bayer migraine formula.

>> gretchen: last night's debate had a few zingers, but did they work? >> brian: that's the big question. why don't we bring in an expert. joining us a man who knows a thing about cracking a joke and saying something off the top of his head and getting crowds to laugh and understand, larry the cable guy, welcome back to the couch. >> it's always nice to be on the couch with you.

>> steve: great to have you. >> love "fox & friends." >> brian: we hope so. >> steve: of the two candidates last night, which one got her done? >> i got to tell you, i didn't have a chance to watch the debates last night 'cause i was up all night scrapbooking. [ laughter ] >> brian: what are you trying to say? you are not telling the truth. >> no. actually i watched it and first of all, i was disappointed they did not talk about the biggest issue facing this country. >> steve: which is? >> the bacon shortage. every time i think about it, my stomach rumbles. but i got one of them big screen tvs, 3 d. i watched that debate in 3d, it was right there being bored with the candidates. it was right there. it was unbelievable. >> brian: you know about performing under pressure, standing there with people watching you and how do you overcome the nerves? who do you think performed better, stood up to the charge? stood up to the challenge?

60 million watched. >> it was unbelievable. that's my whole 60 million. that's what i average. let me tell you, though, i think that if you're going to be debating, it was a good debate, but it wasn't buttered in clint eastwood and the chair. clint tore into that chair. so it wasn't better than that. it was good. >> gretchen: you talked about bacon and your tummy rumbles. >> my tummy rumbles. here is another thing i was disappointed about the debate. there wasn't any of yo mama jokes. yo mama, yeah, well your mama. >> steve: there is so much on the line. >> brian: what about that's what she said. >> now, that's a debate. here is what they ought to do next time. why am i looking like this? >> steve: i don't know. >> here is how i look at it. what they ought to do is they ought to -- whoever lies,

whoever says something that ain't true, should get hit with a paint ball. >> brian: right. by nickelodeon. >> when the debate is over, who ever has the most paint balls, they're the loseer. >> steve: that would have given jim lehrer something to do. >> gretchen: i tried to set you up with the bacon to the prilosec. >> i am a frequent heartburn sufferer. a lot of people look at me going, no, you don't suffer from heartburn. >> brian: really? >> look at you. but i am a frequent heartburn sufferer. i have teamed up with once again, prilosec otc wild berry. now wild berry. basically you read the directions, first of all. it's an explosion. >> brian: is it like pop rocks?

>> like a regular pill. it's flavor explosion and wild berry is unbelievable. way better than the french onion one. they don't have a french onion one. prilosec otc wild berry. >> steve: if you have heartburn a lot, like the president probably has today, prilosec would be good for you? >> that's right. it would be awesome. and i've teamed up with them. but people go on wildberryflavor.com, i'm doing a thing with them where i'm walking around in the wild american flavor truck and if they go on this web site, i'm giving away tickets to three of the biggest sporting events in the country. >> gretchen: wow. >> and some $5,000 in cash. >> steve: fantastic. >> it's a big deal. >> steve: i'm going to log on during the commercial. larry the cable guy, always a pleasure. >> i think i got all my debate jokes in. oh, i used to be on the debate team. >> steve: really? >> ask me what i was. >> steve: what were you?

>> i was a bus driver. [ laughter ] >> gretchen: all right. you git er done no matter what. >> brian: thank you. coming up next, he's debated obama and i'm not talking about larry the cable guy. so what does senator john mccain think of the president's performance? the senator live. >> gretchen: another president made headlines and he's not even alive. i don't think this is right. >> steve: it is. that's the right video. it never happened. >> brian: say it's so. the rough rider has a banner day. >> steve: larry, thank you [ female announcer ] a classic meatloaf recipe from stouffer's starts with ground beef, unions, and peppers baked in a ketchup glaze with savory gravy and mashed russet potatoes. what makes stouffer's meatloaf best of all? that moment you enjoy it at home. stouffer's. let's fix dinner.

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>> gretchen: good morning, everyone. today is thursday, october 4, i'm gretchen carlson. thanks for sharing part of your day with us today. both sides agree round one goes to mitt romney. so who hit the president where it hurts? mitt romney apparently did with his record. >> you put $90 billion, like 50 years worth of breaks into solar and wind. a friend said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers. >> gretchen: so was last night a game changer for mitt romney? >> steve: and john mccain was the last man to face off against barak obama in a debate. so how does john mccain think mitt romney did last night? senator mccain joins us in about two minutes.

>> brian: wow. plus, the economic recovery ever going to come? the latest jobless numbers and hope they will shape the reelection, that's coming your way and we'll look at it together. "fox & friends" starts right now >> four years ago when i stood only this stage, i said that i would cut taxes for middle class families and that's exactly what i did. we cut taxes for middle class families by about $3,600. the reason is because i believe that we do best when the middle class is doing well and by giving them those tax cuts, they had a little more money in their pocket. so maybe they can buy a new car. they are certainly in a better position to weather the extraordinary recession that we went through.

>> lock at the evidence of the last four years, it's absolutely extraordinary. what we're seeing right now, in my view, a trickle down government approach which has government thinking it can do a better job than free people pursuing their dreams and it's not working. and the proof of that is 23 million people out of work. the proof of that is one out of six people in poverty. the proof is we've gone from 32 million on food stamps to 47 million on food stamps. the proof of that is that 50% of college graduates this year can't find work. >> steve: welcome aboard. hour three of "fox & friends," the "new york post" headline says, it all last night. romney batters, bam, barak obama in first debate direct mitt. you look at twitter, you look at the instar poll, it's clear, mitt romney had a banner night last night. >> brian: a lot of people on the left feel the same way, from james carville to even van jones weighed in and said that the president got hammered. joining us, a man that went

shoulder to shoulder with the president before he was president, senator john mccain. senator, your review of what you saw for 90 minutes? >> if it were a fight, they would have stopped it. [ laughter ] >> steve: in the first round. >> maybe give him three or four rounds. >> gretchen: you actually twittered that. >> yeah. i think that it's very clear that the reason why i think this has significant impact is one, americans saw the real mitt romney as opposed to the hundreds of millions of dollars attack ads that have been portraying him as, you know, all the things that they have done. also by the way, i guess i heard that 25% said that they thought that obama won. it's like that 11% of congress that approve of us. i'd like to meet them and ask them what it is that they liked. look, here is a difference between now and four years ago. four years ago it was about hope and change. now it's about choice and what

mitt romney did was he clearly gave people a choice. i want to mention one particular aspect. this medicare, you know, that they've been pounding romney on medicare, the facts is that obama did cut $761 billion out of medicare to pay for obamacare. in the congressional record, you'll see an amendment that was voted down on party lines when we were taking up obamacare and it was to restore that money. finally, one part i thought was really interesting was when jim lehrer said what about work together to solve these problems? i thought mitt gave a very good answer. did you see obama's answer? well, sometimes people really won't work with you. that's not the job of the president. that isn't what bill clinton did. that's not what ronald reagan did. and so i think it really exposed the president for the person who thinks that all he had to do was go it alone. >> gretchen: the interesting thing is, four years ago for you

when you were facing that hope and change rhetoric, there was no record to go up against. now mitt romney had the ability to say that hope and change thing didn't really work out in the eyes of many americans and ironically, it was mitt romney last night talking about how he's reached across the aisle in massachusetts. i believe he said that he had an 82% democratic legislature there and he still passed things by working together. do you think that resonates with the people who have not made up their mind yet? >> i can't tell you the number of people, gretchen, that come up to me and say, why can't you guys, you guys, sit down and work together? they know what the fiscal cliff is. they know what kind of shape we're in. and romney's answer last night i thought was perfect. he'll sit down and talk to anybody. but he'll act on principle, but he won't compromise those principles. the fact is, ronald reagan never compromised principle when he

and tip o'neil sat down and saved social security together. even glick did a good job of working when we reformed welfare. but the fact is that this president, with overwhelming majorities in both houses of congress for two years gave us a disasterous result of obamacare, a stimulus package that didn't work and dodd frank. i thought mitt did a really good job on shredding dodd frank last night, too. >> steve: he was able to explain it in a way that a lot of people didn't quite understand. they hear dodd frank -- >> brian: saved the big banks and kill the small banks. >> steve: he made it very clear. mitt was terrific. how do you explain the president? he was flat. he spoke haltingly. his body language was terrible. he looked like he wanted to be any place but right there. >> four years inside the bubble with an adoring media. >> steve: there you go. that's exactly right. what's interesting, though, is the left is savaging him, the president, today. they're really disappointed that he let them down. >> they'll recover.

[ laughter ] >> steve: so true. >> they'll recover, my friend. not to worry. >> steve: by noon they'll be fine. >> brian: the president could be back because president bush did not do well in the first debate against john kerry because he was dealing with the hurricane at the time and other things. maybe he wasn't used to the debate. i want to bring up -- >> could i just say real quick to follow up on that, do not underestimate president obama. the guy is good. he's smart. he gives a great speech. next debate is going to be very important and i guarantee you you'll see a better performance, but i also think you may see a better performance out of mitt, even better than the one he just gave, which i thought was great. >> brian: let's talk about foreign policy. we know the next one is next week with the vp. that should be interesting. let's talk about benghazi. this is unbelievable, it did not come up last night. the president's decision to fly to las vegas when we didn't know what happened to the ambassador. just know that they lost his life. where is this investigation heading? why isn't the f.b.i. able to get on the ground?

do you believe they want answers at the highest reaches of washington? >> i think they may want answers, but they may not want those answers until after november 6. they have appointed a review board that's going to report, guess what, within 60 days. i guarantee you, i guarantee you that it won't be before the election. look, this is serious stuff. chris stevens' diary clearly indicated he was concerned. apparently there was some 13 warnings about the security there. but the most outrageous thing, my dear friends, is that five days after it was clear that this was a terrorist attack with mortars and rocket propelled grenades, they trotted out the u.n. ambassador who said this is a spontaneous demonstration bread by a hateful video. now, that is one of the most disgraceful performances i have ever seen. first year cadet at west point

would have told you that that was -- you know, there is -- people sitting around benghazi, grab your mortar, honey, we're going to a spontaneous demonstration. >> gretchen: but senator, looking ahead then to these next debates, i don't know if the president will have it any better off because foreign policy, when we start talking about this, when mitt romney starts talking about it or the moderator, there is going to be a lot of questions to answer and it may be the first time that the president is forced to answer questions about libya. >> well, he did answer questions about his foreign policy. remember, he just said there was a few bumps in the road. iraq is unraveling. al-qaeda is coming back. afghanistan is in total disarray because of this killing of americans by afghan military people and it's because the president keeps announcing we're leaving and it's overruled his military advisors time after time. in syria, they continue to massacre people using russian arms and iranians on the ground and we won't even help by giving

them weapons. the whole middle east is unraveling because they believe we are weak and we are leaving and again, the story of the taliban prisoner and the american interrogator and the taliban prisoners says you've got the watches, we've got the time. >> steve: let's come back to these shores and it sounds like the federal government is by law, obligated under the so-called warrant act, if you're going to lay people off, you have to let them know 60 days in advance. this affects tens of thousands of defense contractors because of that pesky sequestration thing that probably will kick in at -- there is a possibility will kick in at midnight on december 31. you want to send out the letters to big defense contractors like lockheed martin and stuff like that. but the administration is now saying, don't send them out. there is no reason to. it's all hypothetical and in fact, we'll even pay your legal phis. where is that money coming from? >> i've seen some very outrageous things done by

imperial presidencies. this is probably the worst that any of us have ever seen. there is a law that says that if you're going to lay off people in the defense industries with -- you've got to give them 60 days notice. it's a law. and now the office of management and budget is saying don't issue those layoff notices and we'll pay your legal fees for you violating the law? that is beyond anything that i have ever seen in my life. the key to this is for the president to sit down with us as republican and democrats have asked him to do and let's avoid the sequestration, which his secretary of defense says will devastate national defense. this is unbelievable. >> brian: here is what lockheed martin chairman said, after careful review of the additional guidance provided by the office of management and budget, you just referred to and the department of defense, we will not issue sequestration related notices this year. by the way, it doesn't mean these guys and women are not going to get laid off. it just means they're not going to appear on the unemployment

rolls before the election. >> total violation of the law and look, i don't have any brief for these defense executives, but you can imagine the pressure they're under from the pentagon who they are depending on for the contracts, for their business. >> gretchen: right. very interesting analysis on many topics. senator john mccain, have a great day. thanks forgetterring up so early for us. >> great to be with you. remember teddy won, teddy won. >> brian: we're about to show this. it's very emotional. >> he defeated the vast left wing conspiracy of commy pinko beltway liberals. >> brian: you will see this as senator mccain brings up the cold war again. ted kennedy -- excuse me. teddy roosevelt do something he hasn't done in over 500 chances. >> gretchen: let's get in a couple quick headlines. new develops, turkey firing artillery rounds into syria fort second straight day. this comes one day after a shell

fired from inside syria landed on a home in turkey, killing a mother, her three daughters and another woman. syria later offered its condolences, but it's unclear where this is all going, folks. outbreak of a rare and deadly form of meningitis across five states leaving at least four people dead so far. as many as 26 others are sick and that number could grow. it's believed a steroid injected for back pain started this outbreak. it could affect anyone who received the injection over the past three months. massachusetts specialty pharmacy that makes the steroid now recalling three lots of that drug. >> brian: here is what senator mccain was talking about. took 162 games for the yankees finally doing it, winning their 13th division title. unbelievable. they get the al east. the a's shocking the rangers to win the west. last day of the season. the first time all year they held first place and the only day you really want to be in first place. the biggest story nobody has the guts to report. teddy roosevelt finally got his revenge! >> teddy with his first ever

ace, history. >> brian: teddy winning the mascot race for the first time ever. he's been racing since 2005. over 500 times it's been washington, lincoln, jefferson, but in the end for the first time since the nationals closed out their division winning campaign, teddy runs to victory and his last words were significant, saying this won't be the last time. >> gretchen: i had no idea that was what you were talking about with teddy. now i know. >> steve: straight ahead on this thursday, last week bob massi helped hundreds of our viewers in florida struggling with their mortgages and he's not done yet. he's coming up next. >> gretchen: then hey, watch where you're going. what in the world was this guy thinking hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios

has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy.

>> brian: bob massi went to treasure island, florida to help americans hit by the foreclosure crisis directly. today bob is back to help you and address some of the feedback he received. welcome back. how did it go? >> thanks, brian. it was great. the people really were wonderful. had a great turnout. everybody was so cooperative. people love fox news. they love "fox & friends" and what we're trying to do, so overall, a lot of good information, lot of great questions and it was good. i could not thank you guys enough for allowing me to do it and i thank the people for treasure island how gracious they were. >> brian: for some feedback that you got from the audience, for example, lenders, a lot of them thought you were unfairly tough on them. what do you say about that?

>> i have to laugh about it because how fragile their emotions are. let's just look at the facts. this is not bob massi. this is not brian. this is facts. robo signing, always say, at least the thief wears a mask and has a gun. i know i'm going to get robbed. they did it with a pen. they wrongfully and illegally took people's homes, brian, and they basically got away with a $25 billion smack on the hand when they made trillions of dollars. you have the department of treasury saying over a million of the hamp programs have failed. you have the head of the occ saying that they believe that banks are padding their books, and yesterday, two days ago, your attorney general in new york, who should be commended filed a major lawsuit against jpmorgan saying they defrauded investors. i'm sorry these lends railroads so fragile. >> brian: some homeowners that are paying mortgage are upset that you're advising people president obama walk away from theirs for paying their mortgages if they're upside down on it.

>> when you have people, brian, that have tried for years to modify their loans, they've gone through their pensions, they've gone through all their retirement, they've gone through their savings, what are they going to do? are they not going to put food on the table for the kids in lieu of paying the lender when they're 50% under water? the last thing people want to do is default, brian. but when you have no choice between feeding your family versus pay ago lends who are got billions of dollars from the government to bail them out, guess what? you make the decision. these people are doing it reluctantly, but they're doing it out of desperation and that's the way that it works and that's the way they have to make those decisions. >> brian: and if you want more or want to be part of these segments, send your questions in to bob by logging on to our web site and click on rebuilding your dreams. he'll get your e-mails and respond. maybe live on the air. thanks. great job last week. >> thanks. >> brian: moments ago, david axelrod weighed in on mitt romney, saying his performance last night was just that, a performance. senior advisor to the romney

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>> steve: quick headlines. the father of the american body guard badly injured in the deadly attack in benghazi wants the state department to own up to the mistakes. he said, quote, if you were in charge, it was your fault.

his son, 31-year-old david uben, now recovering at walter reed. the government refusing to call a christian bible publisher a religious employer. tyndale house publishers wants an exemption to the birth control mandate under obamacare. the administration says it is a for profit group. the records show 96.5% of their profits go to nonprofit. figure that. gretch? >> gretchen: thank you. obamacare a big topic in the debate. check out this exchange where the president tries to stem criticism by point to go a similar plan governor mitt romney set up in massachusetts. >> i irony is that we've seen this model work really well in massachusetts because governor romney did a good thing, working with democrats in the state to set up what is essentially the

identical model and as a consequence, people are covered there. it hasn't destroyed jobs. >> first of all, i like the way we did it in massachusetts. i like the fact that in my state, we had republicans and democrats come together and work together. what you did instead was to push through a plan without a single republican vote. as a matter of fact, when massachusetts did something quite extraordinary, elected a republican senator to stop obamacare, you pushed it through anyway. so entirely on a partisan basis instead of bringing america together, and having a discussion on this important topic, you pushed through something that you and nancy pelosi and harry reid thoughts was the best answer and drove it through. >> gretchen: was that enough to convince independents that governor mitt romney has a very different plan on health care? let's ask senior advisor with the romney campaign, ed gillespie. good morning to you. >> good morning. good to be with you. >> gretchen: i thought this was so interesting because a lot of people have thought that the romney plan in massachusetts and the obama plan for the nation are exactly the same.

did this point out the differences? >> governor romney was clear in the differences last night. it begins with the fact that massachusetts is a state. not the federal government. second, governor romney, when they worked in a bipartisan manner to get it done, they did not raise taxes on the people of massachusetts. they did not impose a government board to make decisions about what health care people can get. they did not raid medicare to the tune of $716 billion to pay for it. lot of critical differences between what governor romney did for massachusetts and what president obama has done. president obama's bill obviously does all those things, as well as costing us jobs because of the job killing mandate. >> gretchen: one of the most other interesting stark differences was this idea of bipartisanship. i think a lot of people will be surprised because this is what president obama as a candidate ran on four years ago, was bringing the nation together and yet, last night on the stage, it

was mitt romney talking about how he had found bipartisanship with his health care plan and president obama had not with obamacare. >> it's part of the contrast in their records, when you look at governor romney work with a democratic legislature, 87% of the seats in the state house and state senate in massachusetts were held by democrats when he was the governor, and yet they were able to work across the aisle to get things done for the people of massachusetts. they cut taxes 19 times. they balanced the budget and got a rainy day fund and upgraded their credit rating in massachusetts. they brought unemployment down to 5.7%. and that's in sharp contrast. we've had our national credit rating downgraded as a result of president obama's policies. he's not worked across the aisle and we've had unemployment go up as a result of his policies. >> gretchen: although president obama's biggest critique of your candidate is that there simply are not enough details in his

plan. so how do you respond to that criticism? >> you heard a lot of details from governor romney last night. in fact, he's been going across the country talking about the romney plan for a stronger middle class and talking about the details. i think people saw that last night. i think what they did not see from president obama was an agenda for a second term should he be reelected. but we know that it would be more of the same. if you like the last four years, you would love the next four years under president obama because health insurance premiums will continue to go up. in fact, they'll go up another $2,500. up to 20 million americans could lose their health insurance as a result of obamacare. the debt would reach $20 trillion and middle class families would be hit with a $4,000 tax increase. that's not going to help us create jobs in our economy. that's not going to turn things around and it's not going to help household incomes rise. >> gretchen: okay. the guy on the other side of the fence who supports president obama, david axelrod, he says that your guy, romney's performance, was a performance.

and that president obama will call him out next time. listen to this. >> will he change his approach for the next debate? there will be a rematch. will we see a more adepressive president? >> well, i know he's look very much forward to the debate on the 16th and i'll leave it to the theater critics to decide whether -- how his performance rates on that day. but i know this, he will come, he will make an honest argument with the american people about how he rebuilds the economy and middle class and hold governor romney to account for these big gaffes in the truth that we saw last night. >> gretchen: he didn't really answer the question about whether or not the president would be more aggressive. he went in a different interview to say the president was not happy with his performance, but he never is. what do you make of that? >> look, i think governor romney gave a very fact-based critique of the failure of president

obama's policies last night. that was hard for the president to respond to 'cause frankly there is no response. and then when governor romney highlighted how the facts were inaccurate that president obama was trying to make and these charges that have been made throughout the campaign and governor romney had an opportunity to rebut them directly to president obama, that was very effective and to call him out on the $5 trillion deficit and raising taxes on the middle class. there is only one person on the stage who raised taxes on the middle class and that's president obama. the american people got to see governor romney for themselves and hear his own policies, not what they've heard from 30 second attack ads that have been run all over the country or in 12 second snippets on the evening news. i think it changed the dynamic considerably, i think. >> gretchen: very interesting. ed, senior advisor to the romney camp. thank you for your time this morning. >> thanks for having me on. >> gretchen: coming up next on the rundown, some say the one

clear loser in last night's debate was the moderator? jim lehrer? we report and you decide. plus, brand-new jobless numbers about to be released. if you're looking for work, stay right here because cheryl casone is here with the top companies hiring right now. she's here every week and she's back with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business crit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, everday! helium delivery. put it on my spark card! [ pop! ] [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capitalne. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? without freshly-made pasta. you could also cut corners

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>> gretchen: fox business alert. the labor department releasing brand-new weekly jobless numbers. 367,000 first-time unemployment claims were filed last week. that's up from the week before, but lower than expected. the expectation was 370,000. here to react to these numbers, cheryl casone from the "fox business" network. so what do we make of it in. >> this continues the trend of what we are seeing. we're seeing initial jobless claims in a range. this is 3,000 off.

here is the problem, we need to see job growth. we need to see the claims numbers come down 20,200,000 ask below to see meaningful job recovery and we're not getting that, unfortunately. tomorrow we're going to get big jobs report for the month of september. we're expecting unemployment to stay 8.1%, no change there. what we really need to see job growth in this country and we're not getting it. expectations for tomorrow, 113,000 jobs added to the economy. >> brian: that's all? >> gretchen: that's nothing. >> brian: i hope that's wrong. what about growth? what are they projecting in terms of growth? i know it was revised back in the spring to 1.3 and we're about at that now. >> yeah. gdp, gross domestic product. is the economy growing? are companying hiring, expanding, making more gadgets? we're not seeing that, no. they were talk being this last night on the debate, that you do not have economic growth on a meaningful scale. we have worse gdp than two years ago. we have data now.

so if anybody asks the question, do you feel better off, well, no, they're not better off. and for me last night, the one thing i was watching for was the issue of jobs. the first 22 minutes of that debate and went way over his first seconds, and for good reason because it's on everybody's mind. nothing is going to get better until you get jobs creation happening in this country. >> steve: let's create some jobs for some people. normally you do five. because of the breaking news, you got two companies. first let's talk about how people could work for living social. >> absolutely. this is not a government funded company, everybody. this is living social. this is a deal side, a social side a web site and they are actually looking for people that can work in their brand-new tucson, arizona call center because they opened up a call center not in india, but arizona. 187 jobs. looking for more people throughout the end of the year, sales positions. r and d, technical, if you can do anything web related, you can help grow another company. if you sign up for their health

care plan, totally free. so there is a health benefit there. i always look for that because that's income as well. >> gretchen: all right. the next one is swift transportation. >> the trucking company. and they offer full benefits. they have a great benefits package. they've got about -- they're looking for 5,000 drivers right now. by the end of the year. that's in the next three months. again, this is a sign of the economy. you want to see this trucking company do more. right now they're looking for 5,000 drivers. they have a scholarship program for veterans that i wanted to highlight because a lot of times veterans need to further their education to assimilate back into the work force. swift offers that. you can do management track, driver track, operations. you can do back end work for them. they're one of the companies that has never laid off anyone. the entire recession, they never laid off anyone. that's pretty good. >> steve: it would be a good chance for brian and i to finally put our chauffeur's licenses to good use. >> i need rides. >> steve: thank you very much. you've got questions, don't

forget to find out where the jobs are, log on to cheryl's web site. >> brian: seal team 6 didn't kill osama bin laden, president obama would have put him on trial, probably here in america. that's the revelation in this book called "the finish." they said president obama planned to hold a trial if bin laden was captured. the book says he felt due process and the rule of law would be our best weapon against al-qaeda. he also said in that book that the intelligence was better for iraqis having weapons of mass destruction than bin laden being in bat bad. >> gretchen: a mother and her six children jump out of their apartment in newark, new jersey. oh, my goodness. a couple of good samaritans saw what was going on. they ran over to catch the kids as they fell from the building. >> i opened up the door and there was like a whole bunch of smoke and stuff. i couldn't see. >> i would love to thank

everyone who was there who caught my children because if it wasn't for y'all, i don't know what would have happened. they probably would not be here today. >> gretchen: police believe a candle may have started that fire. >> steve: something completely different. look at this. what the hey was that guy thinking? a farmer in russia decided to use his car to transport this gigantic bale of hay after his tractor broke. he drove right down a busy street with his car completely covered. the man was stopped for dangerous driving. i wonder if he made bale. [ laughter ] >> gretchen: very good. it looks to me like it might be a sesame street character. that came up last night during the debate when they were talking about pbs and big bird and whether or not mitt romney would continue to fund that. he said no, as much as he likes jim lehrer, that they wouldn't want to continue funding. what are we looking at now?

>> steve: i mentioned earlier that that rolling hay bale kind of looked like the car from dumb and dumber and take a look. exhibit a, ladies and gentlemen. >> gretchen: my husband made me watch this movie on our second date. >> brian: really? >> gretchen: yeah. >> steve: every time it's o we stop and watch. >> brian: the sequel is even better. >> gretchen: i told him on our first date he looked like jim carey. that was the problem. then he made me watch "dumb and dumber." let's talk about the debate. jim lehrer got steam rolled. could he keep the candidates on their time cues? you be the judge. >> excuse me, so everybody understands, we're way over our first 15 minutes. >> that's fine, isn't it? >> excuse me. >> let's talk the other one. >> no, no, let's not. >> no, i think i had five seconds before you interrupted me. >> your five seconds went away a long time ago. >> i have to respond to that, which is my experience --

>> steve: funny stuff. they had stuff they wanted to say, so they weren't going to let that moderator slow them down. if they want good time management, they should employ the women in our control room 'cause they're very good. >> brian: i've never met them. i can't wait to meet them. >> gretchen: the ones we hear in our ear as soon as there they are. the women and the men who produce the show. meanwhile, al roker last night regarding jim lehrer, he tweeted this -- i hope jim lehrer gets the license plate of the truck that drove over him in this debate. i wonder if the truck was covered with hay. probably not. straight ahead, dr. larry sabato tweeted this last night: can't wait to hear the back story on how obama debate team so misjudged this faceoff. poor prep. dr. sabato here next. >> brian: comedian jeff donnel is here and he brought a few friends. i don't know who is better looking.

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>> steve: voters say they want details on how each president ideal candidate plans to change the economy. but did they get information over load last night? >> over the last 30 months,

we've seen 5 million jobs in the private sector created. >> middle income americans have seen their income come down. >> 2.50 for every cut we asked for a dollar of additional knew. >> gasoline prices doubled under the president, electric rates are up, food prices are up. health care costs have gone up by $2,500 a family. >> steve: president obama cited statistics 33 times last night. governor romney used them 344 times -- 44 times. too much? let's talk to larry sabato, also known as larry the political science guy. good morning to you [ laughter ] good morning. thank you very much for equating me with larry the cable guy. that's an honor. >> steve: you bet you. 'cause you get er done when it comes to politics. we'll get into the specifics about the number of statistics both of them used, but you grade a lot of papers. how would you grade mitt romney last night? >> i gave him a full a and i

gave obama a c minus and it was kind of a gift. you know, i hate to admit it, but i go all the way back to the 1960 debate, steve. this was the biggest gaffe between an incumbent president's performance and a challenger's performance ever. for those who think 1980 was a bigger gaffe, i i would invite them to go back and see that debate. yes, there was a big gaffe between eggen and carter, but it wasn't this big. >> steve: you're making it sound quite historic. in fact, "wall street journal" says this is the best debate effort by a republican nominee since reagan back in 1980, which would have been 32 years from now. do you think this is going to move the polls, move the meter? >> that's the big question. if you're asking me to guess, and that's all i'm doing this morning, i would say it will move the needle. i have no idea how much. is it a point or two or is it a bunch much points? we're all going to find out in the next wave of polls. i think everybody is going to be watching this very carefully. but it's bound to have an

impact. you had such a gap between the two that it's got to move the needle somewhat. >> steve: sure. what you talked about in the past is people have been waiting for the debates, so they see the two guys standing on the stage and i think if people watched last night, they'd say, you know what, that mitt romney guy, he looks presidential and he sure has a lot of facts in his head. but the big question is, regarding those facts, i just said that romney cited 44 statistics. the president, 33. was it number overload or do you think people were able to get their heads around it? >> well, it got pretty wonky. there is no question about that. of course, some of us love it when it gets wonky. do i think that the average debate viewer understood all the statistics and the debating points? of course not. and i'm not faulting them. they're busy. they actually have lives unlike us. but they're doing other things, productive things. but look, here is what's important about a debate.

people get a general impression of each candidate. they get a general impression of how they have done in the debates. well, i think it's obvious that just about everybody, what the general impressions were. >> steve: you know, we just had on somebody who said -- it was john mccain, about 45 minutes ago, he said don't -- don't count barak obama out. he's a great politician, a great speaker as well. so if romney won the first debate, which is more important, the first or last debate? >> well, it depends on the election, but usually we say the first debate sets the tone and can have the most impact. yeah, look, this is a series, okay. you have to continue doing well if you're romney and you have to improve your performance dramatically if you are barak obama. no more pick up basketball games. no more golf games for the president. i mean, he's got some real work to do. it was stunning.

>> steve: you know, i bet jinga sales are going to skyrocket because apparently that's what mitt romney played just before he went out to debate. we had the picture earlier. larry, thank you very much for joining us today from virginia. >> thank you, steve. >> steve: all right. 11 minutes before the top of the hour. let's go over to that dummy on the couch, brian? >> brian: what? >> steve: you know there is a dummy on the couch. >> brian: i'm sorry. welcome. >> thanks. we're happy to be here. >> i'm not happy, i don't care. >> brian: listen, can one of you, between you, decide -- just tell us what's coming up next? for example, can you tell us who is going to promo their hoe next? >> yes, first let's check in with bill hemmer for what's at the top of the hour. >> classic. from one dummy to another. well done. now to the fallout, both campaigns are here live to react to what happened last night. and we'll get a forecast now of where this race is today. bill o'reilly checks in for his

first review of last night. another tape is found deep in the vault of barak obama talking about rich people. what did he mean by all these comments? we'll put context and what that's all about. it is an important day here in "america's newsroom." stay with us. martha and i will join you in about ten minute, minus the puppets. see you then

>> gretchen: welcome back. he is one of the nation's top grossing comedians and luckily for jeff dunham, he has side kicks to help him with his jokes. >> good evening, walter. >> do i look like walter? [ laughter ] >> you look like a walter frankenstein. >> call me cranken stein. [ laughter ] >> all right, you look good. >> no, i don't. i look like a cross between hillary clinton and the hulk.

[ laughter ] no offense, hulk. [ laughter ] >> steve: a clip from jeff's fifth comedy special, minding the monsters, which will air this sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern time. joining us is comedian jeff dunham and walter. >> thanks for having us. good to see you. yeah. >> steve: we just heard a couple of at least one political name in that clip right there. we've got e-mailers who say walter resembles our current vice president, joe biden. >> oh, my gosh. you know what the difference is between me and joe biden? >> steve: what? >> the guy i work for knows what's going to come out of my mouth. you know what i'm saying? [ laughter ] >> thank you. i'll be here all week. >> gretchen: what did you think -- jeff and walter, what did you think of the debate last night? >> we watched together sitting on the bed in the hotel. it was sad. i think pbs is going to be frightened, don't you think so?

getting ready to cut funding. they're trying to raise money by selling jim lehrer door mats. did you know that? [ laughter ] anybody can walk all over lehrer. didn't have control of the situation, did he? >> steve: not exactly. >> not control of the crowd or the guys there. he could be an nfl ref. thank you. [ laughter ] >> steve: probably to replace them. what did you think about the president? so many people on-line, the pundits talking about how the president was very flat. >> i haven't seen a brother lose his cool that quickly since cuba gooding junior did in daddy day camp. you know what i'm saying? >> brian: i didn't know he was in that. "daddy day camp." >> whatever. better than the jinga reference. i'll sit on your knee. we'll be okay. >> brian: this is 90 minutes. you guys sat there together for 90 minutes. any other observations pop out at you? >> i'm looking forward to the vice presidential debate as

well. that's kind of like watching inbreds fight on "the cops." fun to watch, but doesn't really mean anything. >> gretchen: it might. so walter, you believe that debates don't matter then? some people thought that. but i don't know, after last night. >> look, he and i have been debating on stage for years, it's gotten us nothing but a comedy special. >> steve: it's coming up. you did it in savannah, georgia. >> that's amazing transition. yeah, we shot it in savannah, georgia, because that's one of the most haunted cities in the united states. they have haunted tours and graveyards. >> his ex-wife was born there. >> so it was a lot of fun. we rented this giant theater. we built a giant haunted house on the inside. it's got everything. we spared no expense. spinning staircases and everything. >> brian: you need everyone to watch to get your money back. >> yeah, pretty much so, yeah. >> gretchen: walter talked about your ex-wife. we got news about jeff's new wife, right when we come back.

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>> gretchen: we talked about what jeff will be doing next weekend. >> that's right. it's almost a week away. >> gretchen: you're getting married. >> he's getting married again. what a moran! [ laughter ] this is the second time. what aven idiot. when you get a call from the governor, you don't turn around and strap yourself back in the